As disclosed in JP-A-2009-001094, an information providing apparatus, which provides necessary support information for a driving via a steering wheel of the vehicle, is known. In JP-A-2009-001094, a steering wheel includes motors and motor-driven elastic members. The motors and elastic members are equipped to a rim portion of the steering wheel. When the motors drive the elastic members to operate, the elastic members expand in an external direction. When the elastic members expand in the external direction, hands of a driver are irritated by the elastic members during a manipulation to the steering wheel. The elastic members may irritate the hands of the driver by sequentially expanding each elastic member in a circumferential direction of the rim portion. Further, the motors may drive all the elastic members simultaneously so that the hands of the driver are irritated by the expansions of all the elastic members, which are equipped to the rim portion of the steering wheel.
Further, JP-A-2008-149844 (corresponding to US 2008/0174415 A) discloses another apparatus for providing necessary support information for a driving via a steering wheel. In JP-A-2008-149844, on each of left side and right side of a rim portion of the steering wheel, multiple rods are arranged into a rectangular array. Each of the rods is disposed in a standby position. Further, each rod is connected to a corresponding motor so that each rod is vibrated when the corresponding motor is driven. The rods disposed on the left side of the rim portion and the rods disposed on the right side of the rim portion switch to vibrate based on a vehicle state in order to transmit information relative to a vehicle state such as a wobble state to the driver.
In JP-A-2009-001094, the elastic members, which correspond to an information providing portion, are separately arranged with one another. Thus, a configuration of the information providing apparatus is complicated and a controlling of the separate information providing portion is difficult.
In JP-A-2008-149844, the rods operate as an information providing portion. Further, a region where the information providing portion is arranged corresponds to an information providing region. When the information providing region needs to be extended, the number of the rods and the number of the corresponding motors need to be increased.